In a wireless ad-hoc network, nodes (e.g., wireless telecommunications terminals, etc.) communicate with each other via a mesh topology without a central access point or server. The term ad-hoc reflects the fact that nodes can form networks “on the fly” without any supporting networking infrastructure, as well as the fact that the mobility of nodes can result in frequent changes in network membership and topology.
FIG. 1 depicts the salient elements of illustrative ad-hoc wireless network 100 in accordance with the prior art. As shown in FIG. 1, wireless network 100 comprises nodes 101-1 through 101-8; these nodes are capable of transmitting and receiving messages in point-to-point fashion via wireless communication links, which are depicted in FIG. 1 by “lightning bolts.”
Typically nodes 101-1 through 101-8 communicate via any of a variety of wireless communications protocols, such as one of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of protocols in ad-hoc mode (as opposed to the more-common infrastructure mode), the Bluetooth short-range wireless protocol, etc. When nodes 101-1 through 101-8 are capable of transmitting and receiving messages via a path comprising two or more wireless communication links (or “hops”), network 100 is said to be a multi-hop ad-hoc wireless network. In a multi-hop ad-hoc wireless network, a routing protocol guides the delivery of messages throughout the network.
Routing protocols can generally be classified into two categories: proactive, and reactive. Proactive routing protocols, such as Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector (DSDV) routing, try to maintain correct routing information at all nodes in the network at all times. Proactive protocols are typically table-driven, with topology changes handled through periodic broadcast of routing table updates.
In contrast, reactive (or on-demand) routing protocols, such as Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing, Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR), and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), obtain a route only when needed. Reactive routing protocols typically can support rapid rates of node mobility and frequent topology changes, but suffer from a larger route-setup overhead than proactive routing protocols. Proactive routing protocols, meanwhile, are either slow to respond to dynamism in the network, or require significant bandwidth overhead to maintain up-to-date routes.
Nodes along a route from a source node to a destination node are referred to as intermediate nodes. When a node serves as an intermediate node on a given route, this can place demands on the input/output and processing resources of the node. It is therefore advantageous if a routing protocol establishes routes in accordance with a load-balancing strategy that attempts to spread these demands evenly among various nodes in the network, rather than concentrating these demands on a small number of nodes.
Some load-balancing routing protocols use a load metric to estimate the loads at individual nodes, and then compute the overall load of a route via a “load-combining function” (e.g., a summation of the loads of the nodes in the route, the maximum load in a route, etc.). Some examples of load metrics include: the number of routes to which a node currently belongs; the average depth of a node's transmission buffer (i.e., how many packets on average are queued for transmission at the node); and so forth.
When a message is transmitted but is never received at its intended destination, that message is said to be lost. Lost messages can occur, for example, as a result of noise or collisions in a wireless channel.